Resting Buffalo 1906

Wilhelm Kuhnert captured this resting buffalo in oil paint, using a palette that’s all earth tones, like a good cup of coffee with too much milk. Look at the way he’s built up the surface, especially on the buffalo’s flank, those meaty, sculptural strokes. You can see the energy in each mark, how the brush must have skipped and danced across the canvas. It’s a process of layering and building, a bit like how a memory is formed – adding detail upon detail until the whole thing feels real. There's a dark patch under the beast's belly, a shadow almost black, which anchors the whole composition. The contrast between this dark and the lighter tones gives the buffalo a real sense of volume, of weight pressing down on the earth. Kuhnert reminds me a little of Courbet, in the way he is drawn to the raw physicality of the world, that sense of paint and matter becoming one. It’s not just a buffalo; it’s an idea, a feeling, a process made visible.